Hasta La Gadget!

A few weeks back we heard rumors that Apple mulling over a mobile payments service. A sources familiar with the company’s plans claims that “Their ambitions are very, very serious.” It has reportedly been interviewing senior payments industry executives as part of the plan to build this business. According to one source Apple seeks to fill two new positions, the head of product and head of business development, for the mobile payments service.

Re/code also hears from these sources that the company’s long-time e-commerce head Jennifer Bailey is leading this initiative. She is said to have already met with potential candidates for these two posts. Select candidates will be tasked with building a business around hundreds of millions of credit cards that are already on file. Apple itself has said in the past that majority of its over 600 million iTunes accounts have a credit card on file.

Due to this, Apple’s new service may very well become the biggest payment service the very day it launches. It won’t even have to wait for new users to sign up. It will presumably allow account holders to pay for physical products in apps as well as on the internet through their iOS devices. Apple is reportedly also considering letting users pay for purchases in physical retail stores.

It was reported back in January that PayPal wanted to partner up with Apple on this service. A source claims that both companies have been engaged in talks but details of these talks are not yet known. When contacted by the scribe, a spokesperson for Apple declined to comment.

Apple Reportedly ‘Very Serious’ About Mobile Payments Service , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Apple, itunes, paypal,

Samsung jumped on the biometric bandwagon as well this year. It put a fingerprint scanner in the home button of its 2014 flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S5. Its a bit different from its counterpart on the iPhone 5s. Users have to swipe from top to bottom whereas on the iPhone 5s they simply have to place their fingers on the home button. Initial reports suggest that the fingerprint scanner seems to be working fine for most users. One might expect that the scanner offers an additional layer of protection, but as it turns out, its not that hard to spoof it.

The folks at SRLabs have been able to spoof the fingerprint scanner of Galaxy S5 by using a lifted print. Within minutes they were able to create a “dummy finger” which was then used to gain access. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with the scanner, even the scanner on iPhone 5s can be spoofed this way.

Implementation of the scanner can prove to be a risk though. Unlike Apple, the scanner on Galaxy S5 can even be used to authorize PayPal payments. Apple doesn’t allow developers to tap into TouchID, all it can do is provide access and authorize purchases on iTunes. Moreover, Apple requires users to punch in their password one time before using fingerprint for authentication. So if a device is powered off, users will first have to enter the password after they boot it up, before they’re allow to use the scanner. Galaxy S5 doesn’t have this gatekeeping mechanism.

A video of this spoof has also been posted online, showing us just how easy it is to trick these fingerprint sensors. Paranoid users might want to wipe the scanner down after every time they use it, but that’s just too much of a nuisance.

Samsung Galaxy S5 Fingerprint Scanner Spoofed , original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, galaxy s5, paypal, Samsung,

As we’re sure many of you guys know by now, the Samsung Galaxy S5 will come with a fingerprint scanner. Not only will the scanner be used to unlocked the phone, but it can also be used to authenticate PayPal payments. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately it seems that the feature will not be making its way onto Verizon’s version of the Galaxy S5.

This was discovered by the folks at Droid-Life who realized that the Verizon version of the Galaxy S5 does not come with the ability to use the fingerprint scanner to authorize PayPal payments. Given that this is one of the features that Samsung has been pushing, we’re betting that Samsung can’t be too happy about this omission. (more…)

Galaxy S5 PayPal Fingerprint Support Disabled By Verizon original content from Ubergizmo.

On April 11th the Samsung Galaxy S5 will be released in more than 100 countries around the world. Owners of Samsung’s latest flagship will be able to do something with their new device that they can’t do with any other, authorize PayPal payments using their fingerprints. Apple may have reignited the interest in fingerprint sensors, but its only good for authorizing purchases on iTunes and unlocking the iPhone 5s for now. Galaxy S5 goes above an beyond, being the first commercial implementation of an authorization protocol developed by the FIDO Alliance, which counts Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, BlackBerry, MasterCard and PayPal as members.

To start authorizing PayPal payments using the fingerprint sensor on Galaxy S5, users first have to go through a short setup process. It basically registers the device’s identity based on its cryptographic chip and then links the user’s fingerprint to their PayPal account. Once this is up and running, PayPal only asks for a fingerprint swipe when a payment needs to be authorized. Generally it asks for a log-in, and will continue to do so on devices that don’t support this protocol.

The protocol has been designed to never let the fingerprint record leave the device. What it does instead if use the sensor’s output to generate cryptographic keys which are then combined with keys from the device’s cryptographic chip to create a new key. This key can’t be used to copy the fingerprint used to make it.

So far the Galaxy S5 is the only consumer device that supports PayPal’s FIDO-based authorization system. PayPal hasn’t said if there are upcoming devices in the pipeline that will support the system as well.

Galaxy S5 First To Support PayPal Fingerprint Payment Authorization original content from Ubergizmo.

Thousands of people have probably glossed over the decorative little clock on PayPal’s Political Campaigns page without a second thought. But if you look closely, you’ll see the watermark that proves this e-commerce giant really isn’t so different from you and me—because apparently, PayPal hates paying for stock photos, too.

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